Ahoy from the sunny Atlantic where the crew of Rhapsody are slowly remembering what life at sea is like.
A mere 24 hours ago we were motoring out of Las Palmas harbour, on our way to race start, and excitedly going through our very serious pre-race routine (discussing how many items of fruit we have budgeted for each day) when all of a sudden disaster struck.
Kitty spotted it first and the horrified look on her face alerted the rest of us to a problem. Following her gaze, we saw it. One of our fruit nets had broken and unceremoniously dumped its precious cargo of oranges and apples into the water. With race start looming we jumped into action, grabbing buckets and nets and deftly adapting our Man Overboard manoeuvres to reclaim as much of our fruit as we could before belatedly heading to the start line.
Fruit net replaced and Vitamin C budget re-estimated, we set off for St Lucia at the back of the fleet.
Fruity conditions at the start aside, we have been making phenomenal progress towards St Lucia with 184.5 miles covered in our first 24 hours, a recorded top speed of 17.5 knots under just the genoa and averaging around 8 to 9 knots since the small hours of this morning. Rhapsody has never gone so fast.
There have been big seas, strong gusts, occasional drenchings, beautiful stars, a couple of visits from the green monster, passing cargo ships and a few sea birds. Right now the sun is shining and there is nothing but blue as far as the eye can see. Life is good.
Clare and all the crew on Rhapsody.
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